It's A Wasteland

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=14pt]Ambria[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Late Morning[/SIZE]


There was something about the sound of a bone breaking – a perfect, symphonic, cracking – that always got her right in the chest. It warmed her. There was a place in her heart that felt closer to human than she could remember since she’d fully invested herself in sorcery, since something in her started rotting like all her experiments when she was done and left them there just to see what happened. She breathed and she bled but she’d stopped identifying as something so benign years ago.

The body that elicited such a spinning thought crumpled in the sand under a massive stand of rocks, Matsu reaching up to push a lock of hair off her face, sweat glistening along her brow. She didn’t like cold and apparently she didn’t like heat either.

She’d never been to Ambria which seemed a shame considering its heritage, the sorcery that’d happened on its surface. But her apprentice had been here multiple times, and Matsu would not turn her nose up at learning, seeing something new – knowledge was what lured her in to the galaxy, and that would never cease to be her greatest motivation.

Sand people. Nothing more, nothing less. Some villager that didn’t like the look of the strangers so close to his home. He might have been better off leaving them alone. The planet was a wasteland, a vast stretch of desert that never seemed to end. It differed from Tatooine in its atmosphere, the cloying darkness that – though pushed back – seemed to lurk beneath the surface. Tatooine was simply hot and dusty. Ambria was hot, dusty, and teeming with sickness.

“Do you imagine you can feel what happened here, if you found the spot?” the Atrisian asked, tilting her head. She put very little stock in the Sith of old, especially the ones that offered her nothing in terms of sorcery, but she’d always fancied the stories of Bane and Zannah. The Rule of Two – such simple times…

[member="Maja Vern"]​

 

[Darth Zilti]

The thing about being a nomad was…well the definition of the word – she had no permanent home. It was in her blood and in truth, she couldn’t settle in one place for any time. But if one planet called her back more often than any other it was this one.

She’d first visited it in her search for Bane’s Heart. A part pilgrimage, part homage and part treasure hunt. She’d tasted neek for the first time and learned patience. And she’d returned to the Meditative Canyon on more than one occasion. Was it her own delusional mind or a slither of the spirit of Darth Zannah that brought her here? It mattered little. She felt oddly that if she had a birth-planet it was this one. There was no rhyme or reason to it – just an instinct. But as she’d been given up as a virtual orphan as a baby, she’d never find the truth. Her sister had been adopted and never knew their real parents either – or even their name.

So she’d grown up as Maja Vern. No doubt something plucked from a cargo manifest on the first freighter she’d been aboard. On Kashyyyk she’d discovered her real first name…Pluvia. It was hers and yet it felt alien. She used to think she’d delight in learning it but in truth it was just a word. The fact that in one language it meant ‘rain’ was an irony not lost on her – given her obsession.

And just as that young girl came here with her Master, so she was now with Matsu – her Lord Bane in a kind of way. Except she didn’t plan to fight her to the death.

It was late morning and it was already hot. Not as arid as the canyon, but given the time of year, unbearable in long stretches. And the closer to Lake Natth you got, the greater the Dark-side seemed to infiltrate you. But like her candy, after a while it become almost sickly to have too much.

Her eyes glazed over. For some stories of Bane and Zannah were just that…stories. For Maja they were a significant part of her training. “Their second encounter here…” Her hand pointed away to the left and she wasn’t even aware she was doing it. “Her finest moment. Those Dark-sided tendrils were what tipped the balance and her mind was just too strong for him.”

She looked at her Master. “Funny how they thrived on secrecy to the point that between her reign and Sidious’ so much is conjecture and theory. Did she transfer into the body of her own Apprentice?” She shrugged.

“In one sense it would be good to know but in another, it matters little. What is important is now. I have replayed their battle over and over in my mind until it feels real, to the point where I don’t know what’s just fiction and what was based upon research. But I know this. She won. Sorcery triumphed over more traditional Sith powers. What he couldn’t understand defeated him in the end.”

Her irises flashed yellow. “That is what you have shown me. You have developed me in a way that no other Sith has been able to. I hope I have proven myself to be a worthy apprentice so far, Master.”

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt]Taking an apprentice had been a strange concept at first, but she’d quickly come to see it as a duty. In many ways she shared Bane’s idealism – the preservation of the dark side, allowing only the strong to touch it, upholding its beauty through careful selection. She branched from his beliefs in that the Rule of Two seemed stifling. The Dark Side was alive with its users’ creativity, growing and changing as they added to its knowledge and power. She believed it was a collective effort that bore even greater fruit with each perfect use.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] But that use must be perfect.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt] And therefore the weak were to be destroyed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]She’d never taken on just anyone. They’d had to show promise. But even those that held a spark often drowned, overwhelmed by what was required of them to be worthy, to move on to working deeper in to the ocean of the Force. So many disappointments. She kept pieces of their bodies preserved in a mixture of her own creation, a serum that kept them perfect so her other apprentices might see the price of failure. So many lost. She never mourned them for they were imperfect and unworthy, but it made those that proved themselves capable a beautiful thing to her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]There were few that made it, but Matsu watched all of them after they were Knighted, crawling their way to Lordships with the same tooth and nail determination they’d shown after spending so much time with her. She cared about them, in her own way. She was loyal without wavering – a strange quality for a Sith, but she differed in many ways – and any apprentice of hers earned the promise of her help in the future if they needed it. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]She turned her head to follow Maja’s finger when the redhead pointed, closing her eyes and imagining the scene as her companion spoke. The Atrisian looked back to her only when she was done answering, her expression almost blank save for the hungry interest in Maja’s explanation. She closed the distance, the few feet of sand between them, studying the pattern of scar tissue on the woman’s face. “Every sorcerer, every sorceress, is unique but for one thing – we are the few that can touch the dark side in its most pure form, that can channel raw power. In that…we share something almost no one else can understand. I consider it a sisterhood and for that reason I protect it viciously. I teach few what I know despite their possible connection because I will let no one taint something so beautiful, so rare. But you…” She paused, amber coiling through her irises as the place of power and what she prepared to confer to Maja took over. “You are Naga Sadow, you are Aleema Keto, you are Darth Krayt, you are Exar Kun…you are Zannah…you are Darth Zilti.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Nothing else needed to be said – that the girl was welcome to any lessons in sorcery from here out was obvious, but she had enough power to make a name for herself. Perhaps the kind of name that would go down in history.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Maja Vern"][/SIZE]​

 

[Darth Zilti]

Maja was fortunate to have learned under two Masters in her time. Perhaps her continual travelling had not been in vain. From Kaine she had learned the basics – not to be underestimated or devalued. These were the building blocks of becoming a true Sith.

And of course from her sister she’d learned how to connect to the Force, to access and unlock her emotions that had hitherto been denied her.

But in becoming the Sith Acolyte she was today – a pale but clear imitation of the Lord Zannah – she owed it all to one woman. An Atrisian. In her own quiet way (for she had that side to her at times) she had studied her Master and her heritage. For the care and dedication her Master had granted – for the faith in her Abilities she had shown – she owed her everything. But for Matsu, who knows where Maja would have ended up?

So she stood on her favourite soil, with her favourite Sith, and listened. The words felt so…natural. She was able to vocalise what Maja could only feel – and felt it was a speech she would one day use as her own – should she one day be blessed to become a Knight and take her own Apprentice.

She felt..honoured that Matsu had taken her as an Acolyte and taught and nurtured her to the Sith she was today. But not cultivated in an overprotective or motherly way. But rather to allow her to either flourish or wither – giving the correct levels of encouragement and ambivalence.

Then her Master paused.

[SIZE=12pt]“You are Naga Sadow, you are Aleema Keto, you are Darth Krayt, you are Exar Kun…you are Zannah…you are Darth Zilti.”[/SIZE]

Maja stared into her Master’s eyes and was immediately gripped by a pain that was the same as when she’d learned Force Lightning. Before she knew it, she was on her knees, wrapped in a cocoon of anguish. But no sooner had it started that it was over. Except…her left shoulder blade still felt the effects – just as her face had back on Kashyyk. Initially she wondered if it was her Master’s doing, but memories kicked in. The Mark of Darkness. It was said it was received upon Knighthood, and would grow and reveal its true shape as she grew to become a Sith Lord.

She stood and tried the name for size. “Darth Zilti. Darth Zilti.” Its Sith meaning was not lost on her – it was an appropriate fit, quite simply...perfect.

“Bane reinvented the Sith," Maja said, standing with her back to her Master as she stared out across the vast, empty expanse of the Ambrian desert. "We are his legacy, and though he is gone and his approach modified his legacy will endure.”

"Now I am a Knight, but you are and always shall be my Master. This is the way of our Order. An individual may die, but the Sith are eternal."

Now she turned to face Matsu. “I have more emotions than I can put into words.” Indeed her eyes were glistening but this was not the time or the place for tears. “I shall continue to seek you out for learning when I can and shall share whatever I discover too. I have a few plans and once they come to fruition, I will be in touch.”

“I have…a, um…speech. It’s a famous saying that I know will be familiar to you. It’s not just Zannah I research you know.” That cheery voice was returning but was immediately overridden by a desire to be staid – just for once.

“I took my duties as your Acolyte seriously and have been thinking if how I would represent you and the Sith when this moment came. And the following, I feel, sums up my approach best…and I hope you approve.”

Maja cleared her throat. “There are three ways to defeat your enemy. The first, and most obvious, is to better him in a trial of force. The best way is to have him destroy himself…The middle way is to destroy your enemy from within. Judicious application of the middle way shall make your blows more effective if you later take the way of force. From the middle way it is also possible to push your enemy onto the path of self-destruction.”

“I believe that Sith sorcery is the perfect platform to fulfil this philosophy. And without you, the avenue would never have been open to me. Because of this, as well as everything else you have given me, I shall ensure I ride the storm winds to unfathomable heights. To unlock my rightful potential and finally sever my chains. Through the power you have helped me unlock, I shall truly be free.”

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]